"I cannot believe you talked me into this," she mumbled under her breath as she waited for the rest of her family to sit down in their seats.

"I don't recall it taking much convincing," he returned out of the side of his mouth to her.

His actual proposal had come three months after her acceptance under duress as she liked to refer to it. She had relented, as promised, knowing that if she refused again, he wouldn't ask a fourth time. They had wanted to hold the ceremony in private, immediately, but Hermione had caught wind of their plans, blabbed to Molly, and now here they stood, on display, six months later. It was only fitting, she supposed, to share their nuptials on their son's first birthday.

Molly had pressured her for weeks with wedding planning details, until Ginny finally snapped and told her mother they were either going to do it the way Ginny wanted, or she was going to run off and elope with Draco. Alone. Molly had not taken the threat well, and Ginny had apologized for the fact that the only Weasley daughter happened to be herself and that her mother would never have the opportunity to plan the big, fancy wedding she had always wanted. They had settled into an unhappy truce after that. Ginny had neglected to tell Draco about the massive notebook she had found of wedding details selected for one Harry Potter and Ginevra Weasley wedding her mother had apparently had high hopes for.

At her daughter's refusal to go wedding dress shopping, Molly Weasley had come up with perhaps her best idea for the ceremony. And so Ginny stood before her gathered family and close friends in Fleur's old wedding dress, which Ginny refused to admit aloud that she loved. Malfoy wore traditional dress robes.

They didn't have groomsmen or bridesmaids, nor a best man or a maid of honor. They simply stood in front of their friends and family and made their vows. He gave her a wicked grin before he kissed her to seal the deal.

No one went out of their way to compliment how beautiful the ceremony was, but it didn't bother Ginny in the slightest. She had even put her foot down at her parent's suggestion of holding an open reception at the Burrow, which had become a Weasley family tradition. No fuss, she had to keep reminding them, and that meant no reception.

As the ceremony ended, their lone house elf immediately started moving the chairs back from their temporary positions to their permanent spots around the dining room table. While she had refuted the idea of a reception, even an informal one at the Burrow, she had reluctantly agreed after much insistence from Malfoy to invite everyone to stay for dinner afterward.

George approached and clasped her shoulder in his firm grip. "Did I tell you, or did I tell you?" he laughed, pulling her into a sideways hug. "They all fall victim to Molly Weasley in the end. Once you bring another red head into the family, it's only a matter of time." Much to Draco's dismay, Severus's hair had, indeed, grown in red, though it was a closer shade to his mother's than to the rest of her family's. Ginny had reminded him that they could always dye it anyway, as she typically did her own except apart from family gatherings.

"So how long do you think it'll be before Ron rounds out the group?" Ginny asked as she punched him in the shoulder and cautioned him about stepping on the dress.

"Ha! He'd have to find a woman who could tolerate him first."

"George," she scolded, but they were both laughing.

Hands found her waist from behind, and she felt his presence as he stepped up behind her, his robes brushing the exposed V-shaped area of her back. He placed a light kiss on her jawline next to her earlobe before he whispered under his breath, "I hope Fleur doesn't mind getting this dress back a little more ruffled up than when she lent it to you."

Ginny cleared her throat as she lost her train of thought. George's quizzical look told her she was not masking her surprise well. Pasting a smile across her face, she raised her voice so the entire group could hear, "Sounds like the table is set up if everyone would like to move into the dining room to eat."

Ginny had offered to cook, but Molly wouldn't hear of it. If her daughter took away everything else, the least she was going to provide would be the meal. She had spent all morning and afternoon slaving away in the kitchen at Malfoy Manor preparing what was perhaps her best feast ever. She had even instructed Daisy to find the old Malfoy family china for the occasion.

As they all migrated into the dining room, Ginny excused herself to go check on Severus. She felt guilty using her child as an excuse to escape, but it seldom prevented her from doing it. He was, as she expected, still sound asleep when she made her way into the nursery. Pulling up the rocking chair, she sat down at the corner of his crib and watched him through the bars. It didn't seem possible that a year ago she had brought him into this world, a terrified young woman. Now, perhaps against her better judgment, she was an honest, married woman with a son and a mansion to boot.

Some mornings she still woke up and expected to find herself back at her old apartment as if the past five years had all been one elaborate dream. Some days, when Severus was in a particularly nasty mood or when something especially volatile exploded at the shop, she found herself wishing it were a dream, but deep down she didn't mean it. She had found the purpose she was looking for in Severus, and even in her relationship with Malfoy. It wasn't perfect by anyone's standards, but she had to admit she could have done a lot worst. It just saddened her that now, at twenty-six years old, her entire life felt like it had already played out.

"Let him sleep," Draco whispered from the open doorway. Jarred from her thoughts, she looked up to find him leaning against the door frame, his dress robes already discarded. Standing quickly, she pushed the chair back where it belonged. When she joined him at the door, she paused to take one last glance back at the crib before exiting into the hallway and slowly pulling the door shut behind her.

"Relax," he told her as he caught her waist and gently pressed her up against the hallway wall. "The hard part's over."

"We still have to sit through a four course meal with my family, Malfoy. The hard part is certainly not over," she reminded him. Catching his hand, she dragged him down the hall towards the master suite.

"I like where this is headed," he smirked as she moved into the bedroom and began removing the dress.

"Don't get your hopes up," she warned him. "I'm just slipping into something a little more comfortable.

"I'd rather put you on something a little less comfortable," he replied as she carefully removed the dress and returned it to its garment bag. She found a well-worn pair of jeans and a double layer long sleeved shirt to pull on and quickly began to change.

"Do you ever wonder," she asked him as she pulled the shirt down over her head and pulled her hair out of the collar, "if this is all that's left for us?" She stepped into the jeans and hop stepped as she pulled the tight fabric up.

"If what is?" he asked, leaning against the wall as he watched her.

She zipped up the jeans and buttoned them. "Marriage. Raising a kid. Me working at the joke shop, you working at the hospital."

"Would it be so terrible if it was?"

"I just-" she bit the inside of her lip as she paused to think with a sigh, "I realize that our entire lives can't be like when we were teenagers. The War is over, Voldemort's gone, and the Death Eaters have disbanded. It's just hard to settle into a mundane daily routine once you've experienced something like that."

"Weasley," he spoke softly, using her family surname though she would now be a Malfoy herself, "take it from someone who experienced the other side of that war as well. I live for the mundane, for the routine of life. It's an adventure of its own. So it isn't as exciting, and you aren't putting your life on the line and breaking all the rules anymore. This life we have, it's a good life. And I promise you, your adventures are far from over. You are a Weasley, after all. Every day spent with your family is a new adventure in itself."

She granted him a small smile at that comment.

"You're going to go dragon chasing with Charlie in Romania. You're going to try out for the Quidditch team with Ron. You're going to invent the next got to have trick gadget with George. Your life is still so full of possibilities. Marriage doesn't change that. Severus doesn't change that. Your life is far from over."

"I know that, I-"

He interrupted her to ask, "Do you?"

"Of course I do," she snapped.

"It's just not enough?" he asked.

"That's not what I mean," she insisted.

"But it's what you said. And it's not the first time you've said it. I didn't want to ask you to marry me, because I thought it would be another nail in the coffin for you. I enjoyed my exuberant ways as a teenager and my certain playboy tendencies into my early twenties, but this life is enough for me. I just wonder if it is for you."

She stared at him, her arms hanging limply by her sides. She couldn't find the right words to say, the words that would fix this. She didn't want to be having this conversation, certainly not now. She took a shaky breath and continued to stare at him. Tears welled in her eyes and she wiped a shaky hand beneath her nose as she sniffed.

"Dammit," he sighed, vigorously rubbing his fingers against his forehead for a moment before he returned his gaze to her.

She opened her mouth to speak, to say something, but her jaw just trembled as her breath caught.

"I can't fix this for you, Ginny. I'm sorry if you got pressured in your decision to keep our son and I'm sorry if you got pressured into marrying me, but those are decisions you have made. If you don't want this life, then leave and start a different one."

"I don't want to leave." Her voice cracked and she couldn't get out all of the last word. She bit her lower lip as she squeezed the tears from her eyes.

"You don't know what you want," he accused, and he wasn't wrong. "I know why you stay at the joke shop with George, even though you wanted a different life for yourself. And I get why you have to. But I can't be your substitute for the life of excitement you wanted from your career. I can't be that bad boy that I used to be, the rebel on the wrong side of the fight. He was a fucked up kid in a lot of ways, and it almost killed me. I need to do better for myself now, before I piss my entire life away instead of just my youth.

"Ginny," he paused his monologue as the tears began a slow, steady stream down her cheeks and she began to hiccup from the anxiety of moment. She reveled in their heated, passionate arguments that resulted in screaming matches and moderate jinxes, but she couldn't handle the serious Draco Malfoy who made her think that, somewhere along the road, he had become better than her and that he realized it too. He pulled her against him, his hands cupping her face as his thumbs wiped away her tears. "If you spend your life waiting for your next grand adventure, you are going to miss out on all the exciting moments that pass by in the meantime. If you need that excitement to be happy, then don't waste your life here waiting for it. Go find it. But you can't keep straddling both lives with the hope that they will intertwine, because they never will and you'll be miserable for the rest of your life."

Resting his forehead against hers, he breathed out. "Just tell me what you need, Weasley."

She wanted a life chasing dragons or in the spotlight of professional Quidditch. If nothing else, she wanted to chase down rogue wizards as an Auror or heal perplexing maladies as a mediwizard or healer. After all, hadn't she left Harry all those years ago because she was stifled by his desire for a quiet life? Hadn't she been drawn to Draco partly because he was that devilish teenager who all the girls refused to admit they secretly pined after?

But what she needed… she needed to keep Fred's legacy and George's dream alive at the joke shop. She needed for Draco to look at her as he was now, to keep her grounded in reality to stop her from throwing her life away. She needed her obnoxious and noisy family always there on call when she asked.

Her fear, she realized, is that she had fallen into a pattern. That her relationship with Draco had morphed into what she had had with Harry. That she had wanted to be with Draco because he had been exciting and forbidden at first. That she would wake up one morning with this realization and want to start her life over again, but that it would be too late by then.

"You're not Harry," were the words she was finally able to say.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, are you kidding me?" he snapped, shoving her away.

"No," she protested, catching his arm and pulling him to her. With her free hand, she wiped her eyes and then her nose. "You aren't Harry."

"You can keep repeating it, Weasley, but it won't make it feel any better, I assure you."

"I fell in love with Harry because he was the Boy Who Lived, and he was the one who could defeat Voldemort. I idolized him, and then when the war ended that went away and we had nothing left."

"Yeah, I've heard the story before."

"I didn't fall in love with you because you were Draco Malfoy, I fell in love with you despite it. I want to go back and relive the excitement of those years now that I know how they end, but I don't need that. I need you. And Severus. I need this life that I have. I need that stupid joke shop where I spend all day bickering with my brother. I need Harry and Hermione to be together, because they represent that some things are worth waiting for. I love you, Draco, even when you are a stupid git. I don't want the teenage version of you; he was a fucked up kid. I need this version of you, who reminds me every day that we don't have to settle on what we are but can change to be whatever we want to be."

"Then be here with me," he told her, catching her face between his palms once more.

"I am," she promised, and this vow meant more than their recited wedding vows could ever mean.

"As much as I would like to clean that face of yours off and then give you the old rump in the sack, there is a dinner party starting downstairs that is missing the guests of honor. And while it is not my family in attendance, I do fear the wrath of Molly Weasley. So chop, chop."

Just like that, all was forgiven. He stood behind her and gave her a gentle nudging at the small of her back to get her feet moving. She knew then that he was a better person than she was, and that gave her something to aspire to. They had had their first mature fight - one that wasn't instigated by brash opinions over trivial matters that ended with wands drawn followed by heated sex on or against the closest available surface – and had come out the other end.

He caught her just before they reached the stairwell and pulled her back against him. "Don't think this gets you out of slutty wedding sex tonight," he reminded her as he brushed the hair from her face and nipped at her earlobe.

"I wouldn't dream of it," she smiled, turning and drawing him into her. He had told her she needed to enjoy the everyday exciting moments in her life, and she vowed that she would start with that one, right then.

Thank you to all my devoted readers who made this three story adventure with me. Your kind reviews certainly made my day. To the next adventure that awaits!